Trek Wars Encounters 1: Part 1: Ghost ship
by admiraljoshhar
Summary: part of my Trek Wars verse, parallels "MACO Commando." The USS Camelot encounters a seemingly abandoned Star Destroyer, but finds they are not alone. This story is a stand alone, and will not be as long as my primary MACO story. I'll try to update reg.
1. Ominous Visitor

TREK WARS ENCOUNTERS

Part One: Ghost Ship

Chapter 1

Ominous visitor

The _Galaxy_ class starship_ Camelot_ looked beautiful against the nebula. She was on a patrol mission, watching over a region of space on the edge of the Alpha quadrant. Though this area of space was beautiful, as well as important due to its various ore and mineral deposits, the Riker nebula was too far outside of occupied space to be vital to the war against the Imperial-Borg Alliance. Still, though, Command felt that a patrol was warranted to protect the miners and the few colonists in the area. So the _Camelot _had been assigned to the sector a few months before. And, naturally, the crew was bored.

"So, what have we to do today in the Riker nebula Commander?" Captain John Arthur asked of his executive officer, Commander Anne Guinevere.

"Just the usual sir," she replied. "Cortes colony has asked us to mediate a dispute, our long range sensor buoy number three has picked up some anomalous readings, and we've received an update on the state of the war from the Federation News Network subspace net."

"Patch through the news," Arthur commanded.

"Aye sir, patching through," the communications officer complied.

An FNN logo appeared on the screen, and was then replaced by the face of Jake Sisko, the senior reporter for FNN.

"Greetings citizens of the Alliance, this is Jake Sisko with the state of the war today. In the Arkanis sector of the Echo Galaxy, the siege of Geonosis is progressing well. The Borg until recently had control of the old separatist droid factories on the planet, and rumor has it that they had planned to reactivate them to produce a new form of war droid. However, the MACO SpecOps Shark squad managed to stop them and destroy the factory, though not without cost. Colonel Sawyer, the Commanding officer of the Shark squad, sacrificed himself, along with one other member of the squad, in order to allow the other four members to escape. Another member was killed on the way out, and one more later died of injury on the way off planet.

"The two surviving members of Shark squad, Doctor Jocelyn McCoy and Alex Michaels, are to be honored next week with the Alliance Eagle medal, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an officer, created specifically for this and similar future occasions. Present at the private ceremony will be the heads of state of all Alliance member states, as well as representatives of various affiliated groups, such as the Empire of the Hand. For security reasons, only military officers, friends, and family of the two, and one civilian press member will be allowed at the ceremony.

"In other news, a Klingon Diplomatic team is to meet with the Gorn Hegemony today to discuss negotiations for a ceasefire between the two. The skirmish between them is, according to the Klingon and Gorn Ambassadors, unrelated to the war at large, and Alliance mediators have been asked not to interfere with their peace talks. General Worf, an old friend of mine, states that in light of Borg incursion on both Klingon and Gorn space, the Klingons may be willing to temporarily cease all hostilities with the Gorn, if they will reciprocate in kind, at least for now.

"Also-we-the-." The transmission was suddenly cut off.

"What happened Lieutenant?" the Captain asked the Communications Officer.

"We've lost the transmission sir," she said as she made adjustments to her board. "There seems to be some interference coming from…" she was cut off by a sudden shrill alarm going off.

"Proximity alert Captain!" the security officer shouted as a massive triangular object appeared onscreen in front of them.

"An Imperial Star Destroyer!" Commander Guinevere stated.

"Red Alert!" the Captain commanded, and immediately the lights on the bridge lowered and the proximity alert alarm turned into a ship wide klaxon as the crew manned their battle stations.

"What are they doing way out here?" asked Lieutenant Commander Gawain, the operations officer.

"Are they allies or Imps?" the Captain inquired.

"Unknown sir, their transponder is not transmitting," Gawain replied. And our encrypted transmissions are not being answered."

"Can we scan them, or are their shields blocking us?"Guinevere asked.

"Yes and no," Gawain answered. "Scans report their shields are down, but we can't penetrate their hull."

"Any signs of fighter activity?" Arthur asked Lieutenant Jim Lance, the chief of security.

"Negative sir," Lance replied. "In fact, there is no sign of any activity at all from the Destroyer."

"I can probably magnify the view enough to make out any signs of physical markings or alterations of the hull, see if it's one of ours or an Imp, or even an independent warlord or something," the science officer offered."

"Do it," Arthur commanded.

The scientist leaned over her console and made some adjustments to the forward visual sensors, and a magnified view of the Destroyer appeared, going from a dark shape illuminated mostly by the nebula to a brighter, but still mostly dark, grey. The crew could now see that the Destroyers systems were still functioning, as the lights were still working. However, there was no sign of activity and no markings were readily visible. Also, no alterations to the standard Destroyer profile could be observed from the outside.

"Can we get a magnified view of their bridge?" Guinevere asked.

The science officer consulted her console. "I think so," she answered.

"Do it," Arthur ordered. Suddenly they saw the Destroyer's forward viewport. And inside the bridge was- nothing. The lights were on, and they could barely see the consoles flickering for attention in the background. But the bridge was utterly deserted.

"Where are they?" the Captain asked, voicing the question of everyone on the bridge. "Can we send an away team over Gawain?"

"Well, we can't beam over because of the sensor block, but we could send a shuttle into their fighter bay," Gawain replied.

"Put together a team commander, and include MACOs and a fighter escort," the Captain ordered. "I want answers!"

"Aye sir," Guinevere acknowledged as she stood. "Lance, Aros, with me. Have Major Ryan and his team meet us in the shuttlebay, and tell Captain Thompson to ready her fighter to launch."

The turbolift doors closed behind the three bridge officers as it sped off to the shuttlebay.


	2. The Belly of the Beast

Chapter 2

Into the belly of the Beast

"Shuttlecraft _Yar_ requesting permission to launch," Lieutenant Aros, the pilot said over the comm.

"Permission granted _Yar_," came the reply from flight control. "Good luck."

The sleek shuttle activated its antigravity repulsors and began to move forward, out of the shuttlebay. Simultaneously, an Alliance _Phoenix_ class fighter, piloted by Captain Suzanne Thompson, rose alongside them. As the two craft left the ship's protection, the fighter pulled slightly ahead, ready to provide cover as the shuttles escort.

The crew of the shuttle, Commander Guinevere, Lieutenants Lance and Aros, and the four MACOs with them, all watched the viewport as the small shuttle maneuvered under the Destroyer and advanced towards its ventral fighter bay.

"Right into the belly of the beast," one of the MACOs observed, but was silenced from further commentary by his C.O., Major Ryan. The MACOs had seen little action on this tour of duty, serving as little more than bodyguards during the Captain's diplomatic visits to the colonies and mines of the sector. So, naturally they were a little anxious for action. But in Major Ryan's book, that was no excuse to forego discipline. He was very strong on discipline. In fact, at the academy where he had served for a time as drill sergeant, he had been known as the "Iron Cardie," referring to his Cardassian physiology. Ryan had been born on Cardassia, just after the Dominion War, as Kar Macet. However, during the rebuilding, his parents had arranged for him to be smuggled off planet with a human family called the Ryan's. But they had hated him, and treated him like dirt. So the first chance he got, he joined the MACOs, who accepted him almost immediately. He had risen through the ranks, but not as quickly as he could have, for his superiors were apprehensive of his strict military discipline. He had even been interviewed by an officer as a candidate for the SpecOps, but had been passed over early on because he was too "rigid and inflexible." After that, he had given up on advancement beyond the rank of Major, and asked for a transfer. And they had given him one- right to the end of nowhere- out in the outer region of the galaxy where he couldn't be a problem. But his men were some of the best trained in the alliance, and they now finally had a mission worthy of their talents. They were going into the belly of the beast.

The shuttle slowed as it passed through the still active forcefield of the fighter bay, and the MACOs readied their rifles as the shuttle set down on the deck.

"Scanners are still pretty sketchy, even in here," Aros observed. "But I can tell you now- there are no lifesigns other than us anywhere on this deck."

"Let's not take any chances," Guinevere stated, and Lance and Ryan nodded in acknowledgement. "Rifles and pistols for all of us, and put your environmental suits on."

The MACOs put on their helmets as the Starfleet officers put on their EV suits. The MACOs wore grey armor that was already fit for use as EV suits, so they needed only to put on a helmet and they were already airtight. The Starfleet officers, though, had to put on suits from the shuttle's storage lockers.

In a few moments they were all ready to go. Ryan and Lance, as the senior security officers, would be first out, then the MACOs, then the officers. Lance pushed the button that would open the hatch and stepped back, lifting his pistol to ready position as Ryan did the same with his rifle. The hatch opened to reveal… nothing. On the other side of the hatch, the entire deck was, as Aros had said, abandoned.

But they could tell this abandonment had not been in a hurry. Equipment sat on shelves, TIE fighters were still on their racks, and consoles still blinked, waiting for attention from a maintenance officer or a pilot who was no longer there. One TIE was set down in a dry-dock and was opened for maintenance, with a panel loose on its side and a toolkit sitting on the rail next to it. But there was no one there to attend to it. The bay was empty.

"It's as if they just… dropped what they were doing and- and- just disappeared," Aros observed nervously.

"Is anyone familiar with the term 'ghost ship'?" asked a voice from behind them. Lance and Ryan whirled around to see Captain Thompson, strolling over from her fighter, still wearing her flight suit, but not wearing an EV suit.

"Where's your EVS Captain?" Guinevere asked the pilot.

"Have you ever tried to put an EVS on in the cockpit of a fighter Commander?" Thompson replied. "Let's just say it isn't easy. Besides, my scans don't show any danger on this deck."

"Very well," Guinevere conceded. She turned towards her men. "Ryan, you and one of your men make your way to the ships armory and secure it. Leave one of your men with Lance and I, and we'll head for the bridge. Let's find the Captain some answers people. Aros, you and Thompson stay here with the other MACO and cover our escape route."

She was met with a round of "Aye sirs" and they left the hanger. Ryan turned to Lieutenant O'Rourke, the man who would stay behind with Thompson and Aros.

"O'Rourke, set up an E-Web and stay on guard," he ordered as he stepped into a lift. "We still don't know what happened to the crew, and I want to be ready if and when they return."

The door closed behind him, and the lift began to rise.

8888

The MACO with Guinevere was the first onto the bridge, followed by Lance, who, like the MACO, held his weapon at the ready. On the way to the bridge, they had looked into a mess hall and a rec deck, both of which were abandoned. On the rec deck, a TIE simulator was still active, and in the mess hall, half eaten meals sat on tables, unattended to. That was when they had made a new observation- the absence of droids. Not even a single MSE droid, of which there were usually hundreds scattered throughout the Destroyer, was to be found. No wreckage, no bodies, nothing.

The bridge was as they had seen from the _Camelot_, and as the other rooms had been- abandoned.

"The bridge is clear," Lance said, and the MACO nodded in agreement. Guinevere stepped through the doors and looked over the bridge.

"Just like the hanger, and the rec deck, and the mess hall," she observed. "Empty."

"Maybe we can find something in the log about it," Lance suggested.

"Good idea," she acknowledged. "Any idea where we can find it?"

None of them were familiar with the layout of a Star Destroyer's bridge, so they looked around.

"Over here Commander!" the MACO said from the crew pit. "A holographic recorder unit, and it's still recording."

Guinevere and Lance joined him, and they reversed the feed by a half hour, when the ship first appeared, then forty five minutes, then an hour. Finally they saw something- one minute the bridge was just as it was now, and then there was a blinding red flash. The next minute, it was again back to normal.

"Back it up again," Guinevere ordered. "Try two hours ago."

The MACO complied, and the device backed up to two hours. Again, the bridge was the same- empty.

"Try six hours," she ordered. Again, they saw a blinding red flash, and then nothing. "Twelve hours." Nothing.

"Twenty four hours," she commanded. This time they saw something- a man, in the center of the bridge, barely visible as a blur on the recording.

"_No!"_ he shouted at the air. _"Where are my men? What have you done with my crew?"_ There was a burst of static, then a red flash, and then- nothing. The bridge was as it would be for the next twenty four hours- abandoned and empty. The three _Camelot_ crewmen stood in stunned silence.

The silence was broken as Guinevere's communicator chirped.

"Go ahead," she said after she tapped it.

_"Ryan here,"_ came his voice. _"The armory is fully stocked, but it's abandoned just like everything else."_

"Acknowledged," she replied. "Make your way down to engineering, that's where the sensor interference appears to be coming from. We'll meet you there."

8888

"Well this is kinda boring," Lieutenant Aros said. She was a young Lieutenant, barely out of the academy. It was a testament to the desperation of war that one so young was already a lieutenant and chief helmsman of a _Galaxy_ class ship.

"Better than the alternative," Captain Thompson replied, looking up from her hand of cards. She had brought a crate over and had pulled out a deck of cards and began playing with the MACO soon after he had set up the E-Web. Of course, if danger appeared, they were close enough that he could immediately man it, and she could use the crate for cover, but a decent game of poker was a good way for them to stave off boredom. "Why don't you join us Aros?"

"Because the last time I did at the officer's club, you and Gawain wiped me clean," she answered. "And I can't afford for it to happen again!"

"Suit yourself," Thompson said as she set her cards down in front of her. "Read 'em and weep O'Rourke!"

On the table was a pair of sixes and three twos.

"Not so fast Thompson," he said with a grin. He then set his cards down- a full house.

"You've been holding out on me Johnny!" Thompson exclaimed.

Suddenly, O'Rourke's grin disappeared- along with part of his face.

"Johnny!" Thompson shouted hysterically. Aros too, began to scream, as the rest of the MACO's body quickly dissolved.

"O'Rourke!" Aros shouted, but stopped suddenly as she too began to dissolve. Thompson probably would've screamed her name too, but she was already dissolving the way the other two had.

And just like that, the hanger was just as empty as it had been when they arrived.

All of it had taken only seconds. And if anyone had been watching, they would have noticed a flash of red. And then there was… nothing.

8888

"Guinevere to Aros," the Commander said as she tapped her communicator. There was no response. "Guinevere to Thompson," she tried. Again, there was no response. "Commander Guinevere to Lieutenant O'Rourke." Nothing. Guinevere turned to Lance. "Could we be getting interference?"

"Possibly," he replied. "We are getting closer to the source, so it may be getting stronger."

"Check the tricorder," she ordered.

Lance complied, and frowned as he saw the results.

"It seems to be working," he said. "But I'm not detecting any lifesigns on the hanger deck."

"What about Ryan and his man?" she asked.

"Right here," Ryan said as he came up behind them.

"When was the last time you heard from the hanger group?" Guinevere inquired.

"I got a report from O'Rourke a few minutes ago," Ryan responded. "Why?"

"I tried a few seconds ago, and no one answered. And on top of that, the tricorder isn't picking any lifesigns from the hanger."

"Actually, we aren't picking anything up now," Lance cut in as they stopped in front of the door to the engineering deck. "Maybe we just hit interference somewhere between there and here."

"That's possible," Guinevere admitted, "but I still don't like it."

"Well, we could always go back and check on them," Ryan suggested.

"Alright, but first let's find out what's going on here," she said. "Open the door."

Lance complied, and the door slid open to reveal… something.


	3. Nano Life

Chapter 3

Nano-life

The engineering deck was dark, as nearly everything was shut down, except for the hyperdrive core and control systems. Around the room, unlike every other room on the Destroyer, consoles were black, shutdown. And on the floor was something they had expected to see everywhere, but had so far been nowhere- bodies. Two of them.

"Check them out Ryan," Guinevere ordered.

Ryan walked up to them, turning on his palm light. He checked first one, and then the other.

"The first one's dead," he declared. The other one's alive- barely."

Suddenly, the living man shot up.

"Close the door!" he shouted. "If you want to live, close the shabbin' door!"

"Close it!" Guinevere ordered.

Ryan's MACO complied immediately, and what little light was in the room vanished, save for the blue glow of the hyperdrive core and Ryan's palm light. The other MACOs turned their own lights on, and the two regular starfleeters pulled theirs off of their belts. They pointed their lights at the man who had spoken, who was again lying down.

"Water," he said in a dry voice. Ryan pulled out his canteen, marked with a MACO patch with a picture of a castle in the center representing the _Camelot_. He lifted the man's head and gave him a few sips. The man wore a ragged imperial uniform with a Major's rank cylinders.

"Who are you, and why did you tell us to close the door?" Ryan asked him after he had drunk some.

"I'm Major Tor Zanta," he replied, his voice returning to normal. "I'm a scientist attached to the Nano-life project."

"The what?" Guinevere asked.

"Wait," the Imp said, squinting in the light. "You're Alliance!"

"Yes, and we just saved your but," Lance replied.

Zanta chuckled. "I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. We're all dead anyway."

"What do you mean?" Guinevere asked.

"Let me start from the beginning," he said as he sat up. "I was sent to this ship, the _Excellence_, about a year ago to serve as an assistant to General Evir Derricote, the stupidest genius I've ever met- and the most sadistic. He and his team were studying methods of creating various forms of biological weapon not covered by the New Khitomer accords. We were told that they'd only be used in defense as a last resort weapon, not that we believed that, what with Muertos running things.

"Anyway, he wasn't having much luck, after all, the Khitomer accords were pretty thorough, and he was being closely monitored. Then, about a month after I arrived, he hit upon a breakthrough. While he was working with Borg nanotechnology, we made an astonishing discovery: an entire world made up of living subatomic particles!

"We were astonished, of course, and then a more important event occurred. They spoke to us."

"How can something that small communicate?" Guinevere asked.

"I'm getting to that," Zanta replied, annoyed by the interruption. "Evidently, they already were a relatively advanced "culture," so they found a way to communicate. Evidently, they aren't really subatomic particles; they're visitors from another realm, according to them. They had been studying us for some time, apparently, and were familiar with our efforts to create a bio weapon, and our limitations. They offered their help, and we were too excited to ask why, fools that we were.

"So they showed us how to manipulate other particles to create more "life," of an artificial sort. These would function as subatomic assassins, and since they were artificial, they fell under the category of assassin droids- not covered by Khitomer, in other words.

"We had full control, at first. We thanked the sub-life, as we called the "visitors," and they congratulated us, and then just, well, died."

"Died?" Lance said incredulously.

"Yes, evidently their lives were very short, and they'd gone through thousands of generations since we last spoke to them. Apparently, they underwent some extinction level event. It was around that time that we realized the nano-mechs were their "children," and would live much longer than they had on our level. Don't ask me to explain, Mercen was the nano scientist, not me."

"Mercen?"

"The guy lying next to me, unfortunately. Anyhow, we had control, and programmed them first to go after droids, to test them out. They worked perfectly in most situations. For some reason, though, they didn't work well in the dark, or when we put signal interference tech around them. Mercen said something about how it affected their artificial "brains" or something, I don't remember. I do remember that the original sub life had no such limitations.

"At first, we all congratulated one another on a job well done. Then things started to go missing. First it was the MouSE droids. There's so many of them, we didn't notice till they were all gone. Then the protocol and maintenance droids went missing. When we realized AI was being targeted, we checked the artificial sub life, or "nano-life." The computer did an inventory, and said they were all there.

"We were perplexed, and started looking for another cause, when people started disappearing. First some techs didn't show up for duty, and it was dismissed. Then the XO disappeared, and the Captain ordered a search. No bodies were found. It was then that I realized the flaw in our system.

"You see, not realizing what the nano-life we made were capable of, we made a specific amount- three hundred, six groups of fifty. And we set the computer that monitored them to scan for three hundred. As soon as I realized this, I set the computer to check for _four_ hundred. Then five hundred. Then a thousand, then ten thousand."

"How many were there?"Guinevere asked as a sense of dread permeated the room.

"The computer eventually stopped at one million seven hundred fifty thousand nine hundred and fifty in the containers. It also eventually detected a leak in all three containers, once we programmed it to search for it."

"So you had no way of knowing how many had escaped," Lance observed.

"It didn't matter- they could replicate themselves, and we had no way to stop them. Of course, General Derricote ordered them all destroyed, but as the laser fired at them, they had a "mass exodus" and left the container. Once they joined those already out, there were so many, we could actually see them in the form of occasional red flashes. And the flashes were strongest while they consumed their prey- us. Derricote was the first to go. Mercer and I fled the lab along with three others while the rest dissolved, and ordered the room sealed. But evidently the primary swarm could communicate with others, because another swarm appeared and attacked us. Two of the techs were killed, but the other three of us escaped. Evidently, the swarm can't just eat through solid doors and walls, I still don't know why. So we sent the tech to the bridge to let the Captain know what was going on while we came down here to activate some sensor blocking devices, which the engineer helped us modify. But just as we were about to activate it, a swarm attacked. The engineer was hit first, then his crew. It was then that Mercer realized two of their other vulnerabilities- darkness you know of, but as it turns out, in hyperspace they go dormant. So Mercen activated the hyperdrive while I went for the lights. Unfortunately, at that point, the swarm had finished eating the engineers and moved into the next room- ours.

"They attacked Mercen as he made a final adjustment to the hyperdrive, and he couldn't punch it. So I grabbed a blaster off the wall and fired at the swarm, not realizing that it'd have no effect of them. But it did affect the drive. It lit up and sparks flew as it activated, but went wild. I don't know what specific affect it had, but as soon as we entered hyperspace, the swarm just… disappeared. I suppose they went dormant. I looked out a viewport to make sure we were in hyperspace, and we were… sort of. Where it's normally blue, it was _red_. I checked the instruments, and what it said scared me. It said "time to emergency shutdown two minutes." So I did the only thing I could think of to prepare for our arrival-and the swarm's awakening.

"I turned out the lights. By this point, Mercen was dead, so I just, well, left him there. After we dropped out of hyperspace, I realized that the jamming device was ready, just not activated. So I went into engineering and activated it. Of course, that cut the deck off completely, and I had no way to get food or water. So I resigned myself to a slow death. Until I saw your shuttle out the window, and the rest you know.

"And now we're stuck here, and when you're rations run out, we'll all die the same slow death you stopped me from."


End file.
